BEE TREE

Donald A. Windsor

Wild honey bees nest inside hollow trees and we sometimes find them flying in and out of an opening.  However, I have never seen the inside of a natural hive.

Until Sunday morning on a Bullthistle Hike through the Basswood State Forest in Oxford.  We were taking a well-deserved break on and around a large fallen tree trunk, when Dot Rice noticed the hollow tree trunk contained a bee hive.

The bees probably abandoned the hive when the tree blew over, apparently several years ago, because the wax honeycombs had deteriorated to a fragile dry material.

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EARLY HISTORY OF THE TOWNS

Donald A. Windsor

Here are the maps I will use in my presentation on Tuesday 5 March 2013 at the Norwich YMCA at 7:00 pm.

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SNOWFLEAS IN DECEMBER

Donald A. Windsor

Snowfleas are enthusiastically welcomed as harbingers of spring.  They appear on snow toward the end of winter.  Here is a photo taken by John Carhart on 23 December 2012 along the Finger Lakes Trail north of Bowman Lake in McDonough.

Snowfleas live in the forest leaf litter.  They emerge through openings in the snow cover.  In late winter rain funneling down tree trunks melts holes in the snow surrounding the trees.

Snowfleas are tiny, wingless insects, about 1/16 inch long.  They belong to the springtail family Poduridae in the order Collembola (1).  They are called "springtails" because they spring into the air by flicking a rear appendage that resembles a tail.  Their leaping resembles fleas, but they are not true fleas (order Siphonaptera), which jump using their legs (2).

Carhart's photo was taken when we Bullthistle Hikers saw unusually large numbers of snowfleas on the surface of about 8 inches of newly fallen snow.  They were in many separate flocks for at least a furlong of the trail.  They were even on the snow adhering to to trees, up higher than I could see or reach.  I have never before seen so many.

Snowfleas can be easily overlooked, even on pure white snow.  I will certainly be paying more attention in the future.

The amazing aspect of snowfleas is that they are here.  A century ago almost all of Chenango County was deforested.  There was no leaf litter for these little critters to live in.  Nice recovery!

1.  Borror, D.J. ; White, R.E.  A Field Guide to the Insects ...  Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.  1970. Page 64.

2.  Milne, L. ; Milne, M. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders.  NY, NY: A.A. Knopf.  1980. Page 629.

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MASKED SHREW IN SMITHVILLE

Donald A. Windsor

A dead Masked Shrew (Sorex cinereus) was found in the Town of Smithville, on Whitling Road between Collier and Stone Quarry Hill roads, on Sunday 21 October 2012, by Bruce Webster.

Its body was 2 inches long and its bicoloured tail was 1.5 inches. 

My identification was based on the diagnostics in the source cited below.  The Masked Shrew has no mask, for reasons that remain elusive. 

We have 7 species of shrews in New York State. Six are reported as being in Chenango County (www.nyfalls.com/wildlife).  I intend to write on the other five as the opportunity presents.


Reid, Fiona A.  Mammals of North America.  4th Ed.  Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.  2006.  Pages 368-370.

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CLOSED GENTIAN

Donald A. Windsor

Closed (=Bottle) Gentian (Gentiana clausa) is a flower that, as the name implies, remains closed.  When in full bloom, it still looks like a bud.  It is pollinated by bumblebees that are strong enough to open the flowers (Cox, page 217).

Two similar species of Closed Gentian exist.  They must be differentiated by opening the flower and seeing if the membranes between the petals are longer than the petals (G. andrewsii) or even (G. clausa).  Newcomb & Morrison have a good illustration on page 253.  Peterson & McKenny, page 321, do not.  Niering & Olmstead have a good photo on Plate 650 showing the longer white-tipped membrane protruding from the top of the closed G. andrewsii flower.  Cox has it backwards.  I will go with Newcomb & Morrison, who call G. andrewsii Fringed-tip Closed Gentian.

On Sunday 2 September 2012, Carol Smith found a few plants blooming in the drainage ditch along Mud Lane in the Town of Otselic.  I took the photo shown here on 12 September 2012 along the Truck Trail in the Whaupaunaucau State Forest in the Town of North Norwich.  I had seen some near Clement's lean-to back in the early 1990s, but then they disappeared, apparently from the increasing shade.  This clump was discovered by John Carhart last year (2011).  The plants look as if they had been growing here for several years.

References cited:

Cox, Donald D. et alia. Common flowering plants of the Northeast. Their Natural History and Uses.  Albany, NY: State University Press.  1985.  420 pages. 

Newcomb, Lawrence ; Morrison, Gordon.  Newcomb's Wildflower Guide.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown. 1977.  490 pages.

Niering, William A. ; Olmstead, Nancy C. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Eastern Region.  New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.  1979.  888 pages.

Peterson, Roger Tory ; McKenny, Margaret.  A Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and Northcentral North America.  Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.  1968.  420 pages.

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SLAG FROM THE MAYDOLE HAMMER FACTORY SITE

 Donald A. Windsor

Around mid July 2012, NYSEG put in a new gas line under the lawn on the north side of the Golden Age Apartments on Mechanic Street in the City of Norwich. 

On 25 July, I noticed a shiny black stone atop the back-filled ditch.  Here are 2 photos of it.  The upper photo is a top view and the lower is a side view.

The stone weighs 5 ounces.  It looks like obsidian, but I suspect that it is slag, because this is the site of the former Maydole Hammer factory (1845-1970) and is about 80 feet from the railroad tracks.

I showed this to David Moyer and he identified it as slag before I told him where I found it.  Gail Merian gave me a piece of real obsidian for comparison.

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2012 IS STILL ONE WET DAY FOR EVERY DRY DAY

Donald A. Windsor

As of this posting, Friday 13 July 2012, we are in a very dry period, the driest in several years.  Rainfall is usually announced as how many inches fell.  For those of us who schedule outdoor activities, inches are not as important as frequency.  We want to know how often it rains/snows.  Consequently, I record those days (midnight to midnight) in which some precipitation fell on my property in the City of Norwich.  On 3 January 2012, I posted my data for 2011.  Here are the data for the first half of 2012.

            Dry Days  Wet Days 
January        10        21       
February      12        17       
March          18        13        
April             18        12       
May              16        15       
June              16        14       

For the first half of 2012, we had a total of 90 dry days and 92 wet days, about one wet day for every dry day.  However, we have had less precipitation, so it is drier. 

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